Keyboard player and co-founder of the Left Banke who had a Top 10 hit, aged
16, with Walk Away Renée

Michael Brown, who has died aged 65, was a founder member and the keyboard player of the Left Banke, a New York “baroque pop” group, and co-wrote its biggest hit, Walk Away Renée. Released in July 1966, the song’s autumnal melancholy, with its flute-led instrumental interlude, caught the public imagination and it climbed to No 5 in the US charts. It was subsequently covered by other groups, notably the Four Tops, whose arrangement came close to topping the UK charts in 1967.

Born Michael David Lookofsky in New York on April 25 1949, he was the conservatoire-trained son of the jazz violinist Harry Lookofsky. He took the stage surname Brown after co-founding the Left Banke, a group formed in 1965 in the wake of the “British Invasion” of North America.

In Walk Away Renée, written when he was only 16, Brown fused orthodox beat group instrumentation with harpsichord, woodwind and orchestral strings . The melody, particularly the instrumental section – was influenced by the Mamas & the Papas’ California Dreamin’. The lyrics, written mainly by Brown’s friend Tony Sansone, were said to concern Brown’s infatuation with Renée Fladen-Kamm, the blonde girlfriend of Tom Finn, the bass guitarist in the band.

“I was just sort of mythologically in love with her,” Brown recalled. “It was as close as anybody could be to the real thing.” Certainly, the presence of the girl in question at the recording session for Walk Away Renée was distracting for Brown. “My hands were shaking when I tried to play, because she was right there in the control room,” he observed.

In attendance too was Harry Lookofsky, conducting the string section and assisting with the production of the record. The band had another hit with Pretty Ballerina , a song for which Brown was given sole credit and which reached No 15 in the US “Hot 100” in the summer of 1967. Alice Cooper would record his own version on his 2005 album, Dirty Diamonds.

The Left Banke’s time at the top did not last, however. Their next single, Ivy Ivy, flopped and caused the band to split after Brown replaced all the other band members with session players for the recording. Brown and the original members were reunited in 1967 and The Left Banke released Desiree, a song some consider to be their best. Inadequately promoted, it only reached No 98 in November 1967. Brown then left the group for good.

He joined a four-piece band called Stories, fronted by Ian Lloyd, whose father, a professional associate of Harry Lookofsky, had suggested they collaborate. By the time they scored a US No 1 in 1973, with a cover of Hot Chocolate’s Brother Louie, Brown had left the group. Later he played with a group called the Beckies .